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This week in the Times, Sam Sifton reviews the newly-opened midtown outpost of French mini-chain Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote, which serves just drinks, salad, fries, steak, and dessert. "Women in French maid outfits serve the stuff as if they were characters in an early Preston Sturges film," says Sifton. "And you know what? It’s terrific." Meanwhile, the Times's Oliver Strand is in Williamsburg to rave about the gourmet sandwich shop Saltie, from veterans of Marlow & Sons and Diner: "It’s a lot of talent for one cramped kitchen. So they overachieve." (He also has kind words for Crosby Connection and Barros Luco.)
Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice files from Canarsie, where he enjoys Ambiance, "a Haitian restaurant a few blocks from the terminus of the L train [which] intends to feed you, and feed you well, but is not concerned with the subsidiary frivolities that dominate modern menus. Theirs is a very ancient idea of what a restaurant should be: a place to provide rudimentary yet substantial refreshment to wayfarers." And his colleague Sarah DiGregorio is back to slam SD26, the sterile downtown reincarnation of San Domenico: "The food just does not seem loved. And although we have every reason to believe the contrary, neither does the restaurant. It's slick, it's moneyed, and it's actually a little depressing, given its potential."
The New Yorker's Lila Byock says the cozy Italian restaurant Saraghina in Bed-Stuy is a "serious restaurant that doesn’t take itself too seriously." And "if you ignore the view out the windows—a fertility clinic, a bodega, and a fluorescent-lit Chinese takeaway spot with the hopeful name Fun Chow—you might imagine that you’re spending an autumn evening at an invitingly decrepit lake house, full of the accumulated ephemera of a family to which you wish you belonged."
The Post's Steve Cuozzo declares that Ed's Chowder House (photos) "makes the work of seafood wizard Ed Brown available at prices more reasonable than ever before." [Ed.: The lobster roll is $24 and doesn't even come with fries!] Jay Cheshes at Time Out gives Ed's three out of five stars, deciding that "while there are certainly dishes worth making a trip for, the restaurant—across the street from Lincoln Center—is less destination, more pre- or postshow convenience."
And GQ's Alan Richman enjoys "chicken that any cook could crow about" at Charles' Country Pan Fried Chicken: "The coating wasn't particularly thick, but it was luscious and crisp. It provided the same sort of inexplicable pleasure I get from the dark chocolate coating on a Dove bar. The meat was sweet, with a hint of spice, and absurdly juicy."
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Years ago, there were French restaurants in New York where the mood of France was present without the need to dress waitresses like French women and have them act as if they were French (Pierre Au Tunnel comes to mind). Now, we want theater, even when we eat in a restaurant. And, we're willing to pay. I just don't understand why Sifton chose to review this joint.
The Captain's daughter sandwich is CERTAINLY not that size in the flesh. Their sandwiches are small.
I like small sandwiches. This can also curtail me from eating more number of sandwiches.